What Time Does it Start?

What does Monday morning usually look like for you? If you lived in the village of Sarang 2, you would be finding a shady spot in the center of the village to sit for the community bung (basically a town meeting; pronounced “boong”). That is, that’s what you would be doing as long as other people had already shown up so you knew the meeting wouldn’t be cancelled, and as long as you didn’t have more pressing work in your garden! The bell rings around 8 or 9 in the morning to alert people to come to the bung. I’m not sure what time people start showing up since our wasfamili always waited until about 10 to go down and check whether people were there.

Usually the meeting started between 10 and 10:30 (even though it was supposed to start at 9!), and the village leader opened with prayer. Then the head men from each of the committees (such as school, water supply, health, etc.) spoke about any problems that needed to be worked out. For instance, the village needed to raise the money to build a house for a nurse so they could have better access to medical care. The nearest medical facility was quite far. They also needed to repair the water supply system, which broke twice while we were there. Afterwards, the men went to do community work (the first week it was cleaning one of the water tanks), and the women cooked food for when the men were done.

The first week we were there, the meeting ended with an election for the school board. First they took nominations for a male representative, followed by a vote conducted by people raising their hands. Then the procedure was repeated for a female representative. The meeting went so long that our wasfamili told us to rest for the remainder of the day!

The last community bung we attended was also attended by a regional government representative, and the village board chair had a list of four points they needed to discuss as a community with him. After two hours, they finally closed the first point. Eric and I politely left to go make lunch. We don’t know how long it took to finish the last three items!